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Wasting valauble donations
This is a copy of a letter I just sent to a local church.
It was a very enjoyable fete and thank you for asking Anonymous Morris to perform.
Only one very small fly in the ointment and you may think it an odd one for me to complain about, given that I did well out of it.
Yesterday, I paid £2 for a book, 'The Redstart' by John Buxton, from the Collins New Naturalist Series.
It's worth £50 - I just look looked it up online.
I got a bargain, but what I find frustrating is that before I bought it, I alerted the people on the stand to the presence of several valuable bird books (and also a couple of valuable war time magazines).
They said they liked people to be able to get a bargain.
Well, they guy who bought the two New Naturalist books that I didn't (and who had already picked out the early edition Giles' annuals) certainly got a bargain.
I'd rather the church got the money for valuable items. I hate seeing valuable donations wasted. It's almost an insult to the donor. (That's a reaction from many years of working in charity shops - if you get a good price for valuable donations and the donor knows it, they're more likely to give you their good stuff.)
If Anonymous Morris come again next year and you have someone willing to make the effort to sell books online (or even just price them higher, or take them to a specialist book seller), then I'm happy to give the stock a quick glance over early in the day and tell you which books are likely to be worth more than £5.
I've had a lot of experience selling secondhand books and I can pick out potentially valuable books very rapidly.
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A couple of weeks later, and no-one has shown any interest in it; I don't think dealers are likely to turn up there...
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I used to sell all sorts of rare books from an ordinary charity shop in Wimborne. eg. A rare Enid Blyton got £15 with no problems. we got about £30 for a Napoleonic war book, etc.
We didn't sell them to dealers, but to ordinary members of the public (who are the people the dealers will eventually sell to)
Half the trick is ensuring they are displayed well, and with card explaining what makes them valuable. eg. Original dust jacket.
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The shop has a 'rotation' period of a couple of weeks - things that don't sell within that time are removed from the shelves - and a minimum eBay value of twenty pounds; the book isn't worth that much (unless you're very lucky). :-(
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